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Posted by: Stuart

I enjoy working with HTML, XHTML, CSS and designers as a web developer. At home I enjoy listening to music, playing music, reading and food.

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Posted on: 4 December 2004

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Comments: 9

Did You Miss Me?

I’ve been sort-of off-line for the past week or so. It’s my natural instinct to mess about that started it all off. I’ve had it in the back of my mind to try out Linux of one flavour or another for some time now so last weekend I decided to let my PC spend a night downloading the 4 ISO images required for Fedora Core 3 plus an extra, smaller one for the Recovery Disc. I scheduled this so I could go to bed whilst downloading was in progress and when I awoke I burned the images to disc ready for my journey into the world of Linux.

My first decision was to just dispense with XP and run Linux as a stand-alone system. I had plenty of XP stuff stored elsewhere so getting it up-and-running to my current state isn’t a big hassle and it would also avoid certain problems with having a dual-boot system. Anyway I inserted the first boot disc and re-booted the PC. Everything went very well with the install and it is very customisable (assuming you know what you want and don’t want) and as it finished the install and re-booted to run Linux I was thinking just how well it had all gone. I think it’s quite a bit quicker to install than XP although that would depend on what kind of install you went for.

Then it just hung there.

I waited for a bit wondering if something was taking a while but there was no indication of disc activity so I did a Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot and ended up with the same result.

Now here’s a good co-incidence. It so happens that I had another tower belonging to a friend of mine who had asked me to clean-up his system. Just the tower mind so I switched monitor, mouse and keyboard to the other tower and installed my modem on it. Then I moved my modem connection across so I could get on-line to see if I can find any help for this somewhere. Well it turns out that there is a problem configuring Linux to recognise my ADSL USB modem and there are a couple of fixes out there to try out. At the time this didn’t seem to be the cure for my boot problem but I memorised it for possible later use. I continued to search for any possible answers but without luck.

And here’s another co-incidence. I happened to do a re-boot on my own PC just after I had been on the net with the other PC and low-and-behold it booted-up into Linux just fine. I’ve tried a few things since then and found that the re-boot is affected by whether I have my modem connected to my PC or not.

So I’ve been able to use Linux whilst trying out a couple of these modem fixes whilst trying to learn how to use Linux particularly when it comes to permissions and running from the command-line. As yet I haven’t been able to cure the problem so I’ve now re-installed XP and I’m about to re-install Linux to give me a dual-boot system. I can work on the USB problem at my leisure.

Having run with Linux for most of the week I can say that I like it a lot – So Far. For me to move would require that I fix the modem problem. If I can’t fix that I can’t see the point of running 2 systems but my liking for Linux gives me the added impetus of wanting to fix it. I really would like to ditch Windows once and for all!!

Comments ( 9 )

Jess
Sorry the modem situation has been such a hassle. Hope you find a way to get it worked out soon. :)
4 December 2004, 21:27
Thomasso
Well, Congratulations on giving it a try. I know it’s one of those things that requires a lot of time and energy to work with, but in the end, there is a sense of accomplishment of having entered into something some call the free-world. In the “perfect” world of MS-Windows, everything is “closed to the user” except “for a small fee,” you can buy the source code and do all the things you can do with UNIX. All vendors build their machine to MS-Windows specs because they know people are going to buy their product with that operating system. The prices of those developers is huge! The world has being standardized by this monopoly and pays a hefty price when bugs, viruses, worms and Internet crashes hits them. LINUX, although not immune to these things, stands alone because, if the free world found one who infected a LINUX machine, ..... well, lets just say, it would not be pretty for that person.

Anyway, there is an old saying: “Would you buy a car that you could not look under hood?” That is what your getting with Micro Soft. Sorry Stuart that you did not find a fix for the USB modem, someone out there has got one. I remember once I had to re-flash my BIOS and install some custom settings for the USB ports to open. I think I was trying to get USB camera working? I hope the dual boot system works for you.
4 December 2004, 22:44
matthew
glad to see your back on the ‘net.
6 December 2004, 21:30
Stuart
Thanks. I’m now back on-line and have a dual-boot system up-and-running using BootItNG as a separate boot-loader. Seems to be working OK so far. Now I need to do some Linux reading before I crack the USB problem.
6 December 2004, 23:34
Lizz
I’m thinking about going Linux (as you know), and the other day, I found a little present… there is an old laptop (optimized for windows 95) in this apartment that the owner left when he had to go back to the UAE… only problem: the keyboard leaves a LOT to be desired.

Anywho, I’m thinking about going and getting a couple Linux images and trying them out on said “little” laptop before taking the plunge and messing with everything I have here…. Who knows, I might even get it to run BOINC…
7 December 2004, 22:23
Stuart
It’s supposed to run BOINC quicker. I wondered if I might get an advantage with SETI Classic.
8 December 2004, 00:07
Lizz
Oh, question: Does it hate USB in general, or just when it’s for the modem?? Cause I like having my USB… it makes my camera much more useful…
8 December 2004, 23:41
Stuart
You might be better asking Thomasso about that. He’s been using it a while. I would think it’s more to do with my modem as there seem to be some very specific fixes out there for it. Your main problem is likely to be which software you can run with the camera.
9 December 2004, 01:21
Thomasso
Hi Lizz. USBs are a little tricky with LINUX because you have to port them either yourself (manually) or load a specific piece of software to the port. SO you would need to do a little research about your system and the LINUX directory system.However, for my camera, the Kodak DC420, it was not a problem. But is does hang every once in a while if I choose too many pictures at once. My Olympus1200 works like a charm without any tweaking. So, it is a hit or miss thing… Gtkam 1.11 is standard issue with the Red-Hat / Fedora builds so you could get your camera going in a matter of minutes. It has a help file: read that first. But go here to see if your camera is supported. :)

http://www.gphoto.org/

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Yes, Stuart it right, the modem is a different thing altogether. You would need to get the right binaries for it. I never had to deal with ADSL modems before? Sorry Stuart.

Lizz, Fedora loves most types of laptops, however, try this link for other LINUX flavours:

www.linux.org
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9 December 2004, 01:43

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